house when george h.w. bush was the president. i wore the mask, his office. the names that's judge webster on the far right. the beige coat is sununu. the next one is bob gates. the next one is brant scowcroft. and, of course, george h.w. i talked to the president folder of pictures of him in disguise because we had done stuff with him. he had been the director of the cia. i said, but oh, wait till you see what we've got now. and he's looking around. chair like for a bag. i said, i'm wearing it. so i'm just to just take it off and show it to you. and he said, don't take it off yet. and he got up. he came over, he walked around. he's looking. he didn't even know what he was looking for. he was just looking hard. couldn't see anything. said back down. he. okay, take it off. so i did that thing, which, by

the way, is called today. tom cruise, peale. i'm a modest and i'm not going to go after it, but it could have another name. you can watch the rest of this program and all of our book programs anytime online at book tv dot org book tv's live coverage of the miami book fair continues now now. hello again. afternoon. good evening. welcome. seats were to begin. my name is? patrick nellis. i work here at the college. this is the 41st edition of the miami book fair and we can do it. the entire college family and

our volunteer. so let's give a round of applause to the volunteers. make this happen. and i want to thank you all for coming out, being great citizens, for caring about this topic in particular. and we're going to bring out the in just a moment. i have to say a few words, our sponsors, because we do this on volunteers and grants and other things. so you need to know that the green family foundation and the nicklaus children's hospital, j.w. marquee hotel, they're our biggest sponsors. they help make this possible. so i want you to feel warmly towards as well. so how many are friends of the fair. can i see your hands? a lot of them in the room. give yourselves around of applause. so. even when you're 41, you still need friends. so we need more friends. talk to some of the friends about the benefits of friendship to the fair. and with that, going to begin.

so i'm going to introduce author frank bruni. his book titled the age of grievance. and frank has been a journalist for more than three decades, including more than 25 years at the new york times in roles as diverse as op ed columnists. white house correspondent rome, bureau chief and restaurant chief, restaurant critic. i was talking to him in the back. chief restaurant critic is a dangerous. so i'm just letting you know he's the author of five new york times bestsellers. in july 2021, he became full professor at duke university, teaching at the sanford school of public policy. he currently writes a weekly newsletter for the times and produces additional essays as one of the newspaper's contributing writers. let's welcome frank bruni.

okay. i know. so i'm going to ask frank some questions and he's going to share his book. then you get to ask frank questions after we've gone on for 20 or 25 minutes or so. and the protocol, you line up in the middle by the microphone. and we'll take questions one at a time. and with that, let's start with did you title this book, the age of grievance? you know, over the past decade, as i've been as all of us have kind of watched public life and political and as i've written about it, i have been surprised and then surprised anew by just how angry the tenor of our public discussions and our politics have become by how many people engage in public life and engage in politics by figuring out how they're, being wronged, what most urgent complaint is, is sometimes not an urgent complaint at all. who's to blame and whom they

want to punish how they want to take retribution. and that i don't want sound new, angry about it, but that negative energy is different, more pronounced and more prevalent than can remember it being 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago. so i wanted to kind of take stock of it, figure out or kind of play with on where it came from. and we can talk about like why we're like this today, a way we weren't exactly 25 years ago and to lay out what it's costing us in terms of being able to make progress on important issues, in terms of being able to pass simple pieces of legislation and all of that. i kind rapped under the rubric of the age of grievance. so that feels very contemporary to me and feels very appropriate. who are you hoping going to read this? you've got five new york times bestsellers. you're expecting a bestselling audience for this. well, this number five, so this was not a was already there. all right.

so when you imagine who you're speaking to, the imagined, who do you have in mind? you know, this book really, no one in particular. i really kind of wanted to write it for anyone who likes to think about, talk about ponder public life and, political dysfunction. i and my editor were, in fact, quite about the book and whether it would find any audience, because one of the things that i think is different and distinctive about it is it is not from in for the left, it is not written from in for the right. it is it is a book that kind of takes note of the kind of behavior and mindset i'm talking about across the political spectrum. and that's one of the things i find so interesting about grievance. you see people on the left operating politically a posture of grievance. you see it happening the right. when i say that i'm not, it's happening happening in equal measure and with equal consequence, i think that the expression of grievances on the right, certainly when it comes to political violence, that sort of thing, are more worrisome me

than they are on the left. but it is a habit of it's a mode of behavior or that knows no one party and spans across the ideological spectrum. and so part of i don't know who was writing this book for, but part of what i hoped would do would get us to of look, not only at what's happening on the other side of the aisle which is what so many political books do. they say, look what's happening over there. isn't it horrible? let's all get worked up about it. let's be affirmed in our sense of how much better we are. i wanted people to read this book and ask what in it applied to them, to people around them. and i wanted it to be a sort of prompt for self-examination. so you want people to take kind of a more attitude towards the world. we're living in rather than preach to their side or try to convert people an opinion, but specify for us, what you mean by grievances, what are you finding? so mean grievance if you just kind of go look in the dictionary, if you go back in time, a grievance, simply a complaint, an injustice that you're trying to get addressed,

etc. and if go back far enough in time, grievance was a neutral, even a positive word, positive. what i mean is like a grievance with something you needed to know, you needed to care about. you needed to act on. if you look, if you kind of went back and did a search over the last six months or you just started looking, you know, this point forward, you would see the grievances on an entirely pejorative content and that that becoming a pejorative is is a reflection of the fact that claim a sense of grievance they articulate grievances even where they don't exist or they overblow their to an enormous extent to to compete for attention in public arena where whoever is the most angriest and even the most wronged feels they're going to get the most traction. and so now what i think we have and what should concern us is, is we are in an indiscriminate lumping together serious, profound injustice that we must

all pay attention to and lavish, great energy on addressing lumping those together, or rather, people who enter the political and public arena are lumping all those things together with much petty or complaints with invented with exaggerated complaints. and people, i think of some of them as merchants grievance. they take they take the of whatever complaint they're always articulating, whether it's whether it's a a pundit who always the world a certain way or whether it's, you know, an activist who does that. and they're seeing their complaint. they're seeing their grievance everywhere even where it doesn't exist in way that actually undermines the cause that they pretend to be serving. and i'll i'll give you an example of this. it's a tidy example that i use in the book. but when brittany greiner was imprisoned in russia, horrible situation, terrifying, you know, for for her and for all loved ones and end to end to gross injustice, i started to see columns being from certain merchants of grievance on the left saying that she was languishing as a political

prisoner in russia because nobody in the united states was paying attention to her and because the biden administration wasn't paying attention to her because she's black and she's lesbian and she's a woman. and so this was sexism and homophobia all lumped together. i was more conscious of brittney griner as a political prisoner than any political prisoner in my. i only learned about paul whalen, who had been a political and prisoner prisoner in russia for a long time. did out later, but got much less public attention. i only learned to him, learned him as an auxiliary to brittney griner. now, she was she was getting enormous attention. now, that wasn't because she was black and a woman was because she was a celebrity. but when you when you are someone who's constantly racism, constantly, constantly selling, constantly selling homophobia, and you take her situation and you think i can render that complaint and i can raise that cry here, people will hear as, no, no, no, that doesn't play. that's bogus and you have now undermined your own credibility

when as low as there is the case every there are legitimate situations of homophobe and sexism and racism. you have given those people who don't want to about legitimate injustices along those lines you've given them a reason to tune out because you've shown them that you complain about just you complain about everything and an indiscretion fashion. and that to me is like one of the one of the main facets and of the age of grievance. can i ask, like in the case of political prisoners and there's a history of this with russia that you know predates when they were ussr and north korea as well is published on the part of publicity seeking by family members and keeping the cause alive in the is really the key to political action. a lot of time putting pressure on so what i'm hearing you this out is a from that there's

additional kind of grieving mongering that undermining earning legitimate concerns. you know but i do think that if people didn't get after the government to try to get those prisoners released, you know, it's a very difficult thing to do. right. oh, maybe i misspoke, but not taking any issue with her loved ones, her family, the people who were trying to get her released. i actually think you're hurting that cause, too, if you are not a family member, not somebody involved in the issue, if you are just kind of a commentator, pundit, pundit on the left, who knows that your audience comes to you to hear about how horrible and pervasive racism, sexism, homophobia. and you're like, here i found another you know, where where it's manifesting itself in a flawed and unacceptable fashion. if if, if complaint does not apply to that situation, you've certainly done nothing to secure brittney griner release and you've done a lot hurt those larger causes which are legitimate causes beyond

situation in which you are grafting them, you're grafting them on to that situation in an absurd way. thanks. i find that clarifying and the cultural style of grievance is what you're putting forward to us. and do you think that's of is there some function of the new social media there? something else that's kind of fueling this beyond what we used to be before? yeah, well, you mean you mentioned social media. that is an enormous problem in regard. social media is is hurting us into kind of narrow or narrower tribes of interest, tribes that are often defined by their grievances, their complaints. and when you spend all of your time with people who think the exact same way, who affirm whatever it is it's bothering you, amplify it, you know, tell you not only are you right, you know, your right. or than you think you should kind of lean deeper into, it that makes that makes each of us narrower and narrower in a way

that makes it harder to find common cause, to reach common ground to compromise with each other, which is compromise, not a dirty word in terms of making political progress, in terms of crafting legislation, a necessary one. so social media is a big part of that. it also tends to reward expressions, anger. if you look at what goes viral, what gets shared. it's the angriest posts not, the most empathetic or compassionate posts, not the ones that call for reason. but another big thing here that i don't think we talk about often enough is, the profound turn that this country has taken the last 25 years, in particular from like a fundamental and optimism to a fundamental pessimism. if you look at surveys over the last quarter century, when americans are asked, do you think your children will have a better life than you will do, better than than you? i mean, those questions are troubling because they're so kind of subjectively heard and so vaguely worded. but it used to be a gimme that a majority of americans would say, yes, i expect my children do better than i do now. it's not a give me at all now.

in fact, it's usually a minority who answer that way. that's a big change. gallup, for oh, i think it's been half a century now, maybe longer, has been asking a question several times a year and they were at the same way. so that they have kind of the right points of comparison across time. they've been asking like, do you think the country is going in the right direction or the wrong direction up until 2004 in a given year or between given years that the number of the percentage of americans who would say, i think it's going in the right direction, it might go as high as 65, it would be over 60 often. it would certainly be 50 a lot of the time, and then it would dip down below from 2000 for to this current moment. and they keep asking the question three or four or five, sometimes six times a year from 2004 to now, they have never gotten 50% or more of respondents say they think the country is going in the right direction. that's 20 uninterrupted years of. a majority of americans thinking that we are going in the wrong direction when feel that

pessimistic. when you have that little faith in the country's future, when you do not expect economic to be a given, etc. you have an entirely different relationship with your neighbor with a person. next to you. it's no longer a collaborative relationship. it's a competitive one. if the pie isn't and somebody else's peace is growing, yours must ipso be shrinking. and that leads to a competitive spirit, not even the right word, but in political public life. and it leads to a pessimism then. and that means you are constantly how am i being wronged? how do i make sure that somebody else isn't being treated better at my expense? do you find that kind of a distinction between real grievances and imagine ones. so there is a way in which large sector of the economy less well off economically than they were 30 years ago? yeah, well, i mean, sure. and and a lot of people who are not a lot of people on the left

side of the of the political spectrum, you know, look at some of donald trump's supporters, you know, and think they're all kind of worked up about and that they have no i mean, if you look at where he found a lot of his support. those are people who have economic grievances, who have grievances related to, a social mobility no longer exists in america that have to do with the flight of manufacture bring jobs overseas. those are those are very legitimate concern. those those are legitimate complaints. you know to ask, are my public servants doing enough about this? are they recognizing this? it mingles together a few. i mean, all of that being the case. if you now go you read some of the excellent journalism that was done not it's not much the next day, but a week later, a month later about who stormed the capitol on january 6th, 20, 21. it wasn't just or even mainly the displaced factory worker from the midwest. it was people who were doing perfectly well but have been caught up, swept away by this

spirit of anger and the kind of people love to feel angry and loved to feel that someone's to blame. because then if you haven't kind of fallen on the on the wrong side of the economic equation because of historical trends or whatever, anything that's wrong in your life is your responsibility. if you're a victim of these horrible forces, if the political class is oppressing you, if they are disrespecting you, if the elites are holding you down, even if they're not, it allows you to kind of examine your whole life and anything isn't as you would like it to be. no personal responsibility. do you also find like there's a lot of targeting of people as blameworthy, not just grievance in general, but i'm thinking of what springfield, ohio and places it seems like specific small population, minority groups have been skipped so

aggressively scapegoated. yeah, well, i mean, not a part of this was sure, but i mean, i think that predates the age of grievance. we simple solutions. we like simple answers to our questions we like very kind of simple narratives and tales that explain the world for us in a tidy fashion, easy to understand. and if and if the fashion in which that narrative, the world to us also absolves us of any kind of agency or blame, all the better. but yes, i mean, the the lie that that immigrants to springfield ohio were eating pets. i mean, it's a kind of metaphor, you know, and it basically is a way to think world's gone crazy. it's hard to understand. no, it's not. so to understand how the world's kind of crazy has gone crazy because of this border situation. it's gone crazy because these people who are less civilized than us have come into our country. and i'm going to just kind of i'm just going to focus that focus my anger there, because that is digestible, that's manageable psychologically and kind of with, in fact, how complex the sources of my are.

that's a lot harder to do. right. right. well, given that we talked about pessimism for a moment do you see any glimmers of optimism? how do we deal with this pervasive cultural of grievance mongering? i mean, i see glimmers of of concern and efforts to take steps in the right direction all over the place there, right now is a kind of groundswell of of groups, you know, some more effective than others doing more others doing real work that are trying to foster situation environments opportunities americans from different backgrounds, political, socioeconomic ethnic, all that sort of stuff to interact. a part of the problem here in terms of our political dysfunctions is we're in a kind of more segregated way than ever before, not segregation, the old, you know, pre-civil rights sense, but you know, people live

in neighborhoods which almost everybody is in the exact same bracket votes exactly. the same way. like i live in north carolina and i live in a in a in what is a purple metropolitan area. but purple doesn't mean my or anybody else's neighborhood is mixed. it means that when you add all the blue enclaves and red enclaves together, you get purple. you drive around one neighborhood and all you'll see all you saw for the last six months. we're here a small signs and then you kind of cross some sort of municipal boundary and then all you see is trump van signs. it is almost nonexistent neighborhood where you actually see those signs treating one yard to the next right. there are there are a rapidly growing number of advocacy groups service. i'm not sure what the right nomenclature is that are trying to push back that there are people working very hard to develop new sorts of social media platforms with new sorts of algorithms that would in fact kind of reward and surface posts

that were that were less angry and even like post that drew likes people from different political that would actually kind of algorithmically be promoted more than another kind of post. there are people every election cycle and maybe one of these times it will actually come to be who are talking in increasingly thoughtful and increasingly detailed ways about some sort of model of national service. not compulsory, because i don't think that fly. but there are ways in which you could design national service program where the incentive to taking place would be so, so powerful. but i think you could get a critical mass of young people to sign, and that would do what the military with the military, with the draft of you did, which is it would put people who wouldn't normally meet together so that they could see that they have more in common than they do that divides them. and there there are political that are being explained to and promoted more aggressively than

ever before that i think would reward candidates over extremist candidates. that movement is happening slowly and and it did not many of many of the referendums that were on the ballot november 5th didn't turn out in a way that said, okay, yes, we're going to do ranked choice voting yes. we're going to do nonpartisan primaries. but it was on the ballot in more than ever before. and that's that's a step in the right direction. that's because that leads to a less polarized electorate. right. you have different choices at the polls and in your. so now that you're a professor of public, what do you see? what are your thoughts about your students? they undergraduates are you dealing with graduate students? i've chosen to teach only undergraduates and know college students are not snapshot of america. they're about no nor naught, nor duke students particular. i have no. i have no illusions about that. but what do you think are the options for people graduating

able to hold civil discussions with people who disagree with them and? because that's that sounds like part of what saying is the antidote. first of all, we're isolated in our neighborhoods as well as isolated online. i'm surrounded with people who think just like us, which reinforces the grievances, but what's the way forward now? do you get any encouragement from your students. i get enormous encouragement. encouragement from students in terms of what i have found be their willingness, their appetite to engage in civil discussions with people of different political beliefs when they are encouraged to. so and i've only i'm in i'm nearing the end of my fourth year at duke, so i don't want to say i'm like an expert of what happens there, but i've been there long to make some observations and a lot of the care, a lot of the worst campus behavior you read about and i was about to say caricature, because in fact, the overwhelming majority of students at duke and at any college are concerned primarily with completing their coursework, getting a good grade, getting a job and finding a really fun party to go to on

friday night, right? no, they're they are more like the college students of 25 years ago and 50 years ago. and they're more like your kind of loose idea of what a college student would be like than they are what read in the media. because the media and i'm a member of the media, it's just what we do. we tend to write about and spotlight those things that are kind of vivid. you know, and that are conflict driven. most schools didn't have encampments you wouldn't have known to watch cnn or to read the new york times. i have found that in a given classroom, if as a professor, you make very clear to the students that what you want to hear is a diversity of viewpoints if they genuinely exist, you want to see students kind of playing with ideas that are maybe a little bit outside . if you make clear that, that is a priority and a value. a lot of students are relieved, hear it and they're kind of excited to have that adventure. and we hold and i exhort my fellow faculty members to think this. we hold an enormous amount of power because every student

sitting that class wants one thing above anything else, and it's called an a, and if you say to them, no i mean i'm but if you make clear to them, this is what i value and this is what i reward, it's an extraordinary behavior modification tool. and we can use that in very, very virtuous ways. i think many too, many professors and you can see this if you read the syllabi at elite universities, which every once in a while, like a publication, like free press, will kind say, oh, look at look at the harvard syllabus, whatever. and it does look like some sort catalog of woke terms. we can do it a different way. we can recognize the power. we have to kind of influence know to incentivize the way they talk and behave. and we can say, i want civil discussion, i want heterogeneous ideas, i want to see you. i want to see you. make yourself uncomfortable a little bit. and how that feels. we have that power. we just need to use it more often and more responsibly

responsibly. how do we do it outside of the college classroom? yes, you answer that as well. did you not just live through the last election? you know? yeah, no kidding. but doing part of it here, this is literate people coming out to to civil c and. you can cue up and ask frank some questions if you would like at it's a safe space, can ask questions, give people people need a moment to stand, you know, wait, time kills us. first, i want to give mr. bruni quick compliment. my wife and i have your cookbook on meatloaf and we love it. and she actually, which is your favorite meatloaf in it? well, does now. now we're getting to the importance usually stick with the more traditional. but i think the one she made last week was a moroccan style. oh that one's complicated.

that one does a lot of. yeah, yeah, that was a cha. that's one way to know if your mind is are still working when you have to tackle a complicated. yeah. i no longer that one because every time i've tried to make it i leave something out okay it's just too much to remember. yeah. i thought it would be a lot spicier, which we actually like and it was hell. i flavor it with a little milder. so i said, next time, let's you can play around with the meatloaf, please come and arrest you. if you change things. yeah. so we love it. so thank you for that. the question later to this topic directly, a follow up from the discussion about college students are in number of years. you've now been at duke being around college students a lot. first, does this of grievance seem to be reflected much in them? and second, come a flip side, do you see much a potential from that generation to be more really vigorously politically active like in the sixties?

i'm old enough to remember the sixties and. a lot of that was driven by college age students. so often on campuses. and do you get a sense that maybe that kind of a push back to grievance part you'd have that generation rising up and being a lot more politically active? thanks for the question. i don't know. i mean, again, it's duke is a very particular environment and duke epitomizes and i don't say this negatively, this is duke epitomizes the pre-professional you hear about among so many students today. and i don't know if this is a direct answer to your question, but i think one of the challenges or when it comes to students engaging in public life in an earnest and you know exuberant way is correctly have a sense that our economy is extremely unpredictable and fickle, that kind of wrong direction and type of mentality that i described before that, you know, a surveyed by gallup

that in them too, they really believe that if they don't if they don't take, may if every step they take isn't the right, isn't isn't considered one, that if they kind of strayed far from responsible return on investment, things to do that their lives won't turn out correctly. so they're they're they're creatures of extraordinary caution. but i don't think is on them. i think that is a completely sane response to the time and the society that they live in. one of the things we all need to do just in terms of the kind of culture we've created, is need to make it less costly to utter the wrong or to scribble the wrong or tap out the wrong syllable on social media. one of the things that gets in the way of them being politically involved in way you're describing is a sense you can't erase your your your your your tracks online and that an ill considered sentence is an

ill rendered syllable syllable could bring heaps of derision on you and could follow you forever. and i don't know exactly how change that maybe it's some of these new social media platforms and algorithms that very smart people are working on and trying to figure out how they're going to promote. but we need to change that before we can expect from them the kind of idealism and activism that you're talking about. thank you much. my question is about ms. greer's arrest in russia about i'm i didn't hear about what greiner described as in russia. she hash oil, did she not? that's why was arrested. she had wet hair oil. she had like, yeah, some kind of vape cartridge of hash oil, as i understand it. so my question is why did that become a political issue i there are probably hundreds maybe of americans who's who went to jail in prison for the same offense so trying to figure out why it became a political case, it

became political case for a very simple reason, which is it's such a minor infraction. and the fact that the russians came down as hard on her as they did and convicted her and sentenced her for to a penal colony was because they were looking for a powerful prisoner to trade in a prisoner swap. so it was an inherently political issue because. she was not prosecuted in russia because of the severity of her offense. she was taken into custody as a political pawn in u.s. relations. do we know if it's a minor offense, russia, to have hash oil? and the reason i raised that is because in this country, at one point it was a serious felony. i don't think i don't think anybody in this country was being sentenced to more than ten years in a penal colony for hash oil. no, i mean, i'm not making i don't know. i mean, i think i mean, i think i think. i think you are. you are you were referring in a correct and important fashion to drug laws at in this country when there have been tough crime surges. you know, when politicians have

decided to go that route. you're referring some kind of like drug crimes that have been ridiculously overly stringently punitive because people were making political statements. and certainly there were people in the three strikes era ended up long, long time in prison because they had three such offenses. and there was this like indiscriminately ill thought out three strikes and you're out thing. but i don't think a britney brittney griner, a first time offender in that way in the united, would not have faced that kind of thing. do we know if a russian would have been treated the same? i don't know. but i promise you, they were not they were not coming down on her because they were treating her the way they would. any russian. this is just we know that, you know. okay. thank you. hello. my question is, i'm sure you you're familiar with the theory that the u.s. has become a much more divided place since the fall of the ussr. and i'm if through your research learned other more about other

moments in history where the u.s. was as divided or more divided than we are now, the only two instances i can think about are the civil war and the civil rights. i don't know enough about those to histories to draw parallels. i'm curious what your thoughts are on the question. no, you're really it's important to bring up what you just brought up. there's really nothing ever kind of new under the sun, right? i mean, i wrote something past week about just how how miserably far in decorum and dignity the senate has fallen time. and many readers wrote and correctly noted, well, actually, if you go back, you know, this moment 80 years ago, and they're right but, you know, when you're talking about journalism as opposed history books, you know, you're talking about kind of your frame of reference is the last 25 years, the last 35 years. it's just kind of the genre. there have been times in american life when we have been more divided. i think it might be hard, though. and this is this is the book

goes to find a time when you had such a range of competing grievances because of the kind of nature of activism in this era. then again, it came up and it's a boring answer because it's so obvious. but obvious doesn't mean essential and important there was nothing like social media, right? you could not or there was nothing like the internet could not in a matter of a few and a bunch of clicks, speed your way to an enormous, for lack of a better word, of people who were going to validate your anger who were going to pour fuel on your anger. and we're and we're going to become an instant community of complaint and social media and internet have done something else which has always existed to a small degree, but nothing like this. they have allowed to choose your own reality and choose your truth. right. we now i was growing up in the paleolithic, right? there were there were there were three tv newscasts tonight.

four. if you had a pbs newscast in your area, abc, kbs, nbc, they like a half hour long this not a paradise because they were half as it was always white men telling you the news. and that was not a good facet, that era. right. but there was a kind of common narrative that everyone participated in. there was a common set of facts from which everybody operated, again, not perfect. do we know that those facts were chosen? people looking at the world in the most panoramic and diverse way? no. but it did mean we were all having our disagreements from a kind of from the same kind of point. now, your truth isn't my truth because. i'm customizing my information flow. i'm customizing my reality we there's there's a phrase that's used in the news business. the has used it where you're constantly developing ways for to use your home page, to use your app to interface with you in a fashion that creates and this is the phrase daily me

right. if everybody is availing themselves of a daily me there's no daily and that is completely different from the late sixties, from the civil war. we have time for one more. but the author will be signing in the green signing area right. our our conclusion our session so you can continue conversation there. hi thank you so much for coming here. thank you. a book has really long lead time and we just had a huge if you notice. yeah. yeah. if you could kind of take an eraser to certain and thoughts and maybe rewrite it a few. have you thought about what would leave out and what you would put in. i wouldn't. it's a great question thank you. i wouldn't erase anything because i was knowing that the book would become you know, the book ends in i think the book

came out in late april. think the most current reference in it is maybe late february, early march. but it was clear that point so that the book did not anticipate that joe biden was going to drop out of the race. it didn't anticipate kamala harris would be the democratic nominee. it did anticipate that donald trump would be the republican nominee. the book talks about kind of themes and currents and dynamics, american life, that the election may be kind of manifested even more vividly, but didn't in any way. so i'm eager to update the book, and i will for the paperback edition, because i think there were things that happened. i mean, i certainly, you know, i joke it's not a joke, but i in the book i call january six, 2021, the grievance prom. and when i watched that donald madison square garden rally i talked with and this is the after, right. i mean like it that i watched that matt and i almost all of it and i watched that madison square garden rally. and in terms of the ugliness and

divisiveness, what was being said and the sorts of kind exaggerated and indiscriminate complaints that were being rendered, it made wish i could have included that in the book. but it didn't want me to make me want to a race anything because it was a logical extension and an apotheosis of the incidents that i was describing. these are yeah, i just want to you all for coming. i really appreciate it much and. thank you for. frank will be out in the green area straight across pass restrooms down to the classroom on this floor straight out that way.

the. screen and. and we're currently a break between events at this year's miami book fair. we'll be back shortly with. more live coverage, everybody wants to know what's he like? is he is he crazy? is he rational? is he dying? he's not my friend. bill burns, i think, said it best the problems with putin's health is that he's too healthy. i've seen him.

i've been up close with him. he looks great. the times, the times i was in his presence, which were up to before that right before the start of the of war, after the war started. and by the way, it's a crime to call it, a war in russia. it's a special military operation that alone could get you a term in a labor camp to step away. so when you go to write that line, don't call a war. see the value of this interview. all right. he look great. i mean, for a russian man of his age, he look looks looked fantastic. the stress of the war think took a bit of a toll on him in 2022. and for example, when the prigozhin mutiny occurred, occurred in june of 2023, and he out an early morning address to the russian people, he looked pretty and stressed, but i

compare him, i describe him in the book in the chapter that you referred to andrew, which is called a title, the chapter checklist. and just effects. this. this nonchalance about about him that nothing bothers him it's it's he's in charge he's famous for showing up late and keeping the pope an american and other world leaders waiting. he's got this attitude about him that and it's it's carefully that he is every russian knows he's a he walks with a these get sort of an odd way he walks his right he swings his left hand when he and i write about this in the book, but he swung his left hand when he walks but his right hand doesn't move much and

any and he would loves this that people think that is his kgb training so that he always keeps his head this he had close to the weapon he would on his hip when he was a kgb officer. the people i know who know they said that baloney. but he loves that people think that way. and that way about him. so he's he's a gangster now. that's good folklore. well, he it he grew up a poor kid in and he's tough kid right after the war, too. well his father was was seriously injured during the war during the siege of leningrad older brother died of diphtheria during the war. he had a tough upbringing and he's a tough guy and that's what he grew up to be. and he is a and that's sort of he's he wears very expensive,

finely tailored suits and effects a more cultivated image. but deep down, he's still the tough guy from leningrad and all his friends these really close to such and patricia, what do they have in common from leningrad join the kgb in the 1970s. those are his friends. they've talked about how putin looks at ukraine and the united states, but it has a very long border with china. other global power. what's relationship between those two countries and are united foes against the united states or are there sharp differences in national that provide opportunities for the united as occurred during the cold war to the extent that the issue involves the states they are aligned on both putin and ji individuals and the prc and in

the russian federation. putin is is, by his own description to reorient russia to look more south and east, which is not what most russians want. there aren't many russians i met. in fact, none i ever heard say. the only way i've worked all my life and saved all my money is i want to buy a townhouse. beijing there are a lot of russians i know who own property in. london in west palm beach. beverly hills on park avenue. not many are moving to shanghai and guangzhou. they're moving to dubai. their moving to the gulf. and putin is trying to shift the gaze. the russian economy south in and east, but the natural the natural gaze for russians was established by peter the great

when he established st petersburg looking west to europe and that is still the case for for you. european, russian, european, russians. james allen did you confess? yes, i confess to the detectives, but my had already contacted some lawyers and they did you say anything? have lot of it. and so it it took on a whole new you know, it off from there and but once i started months into a year sitting in the county jail the truth had to come out you know i'm not to sit here and even though we went to trial and the attorney went to trial trying to seek not first degree but second degree murder. so we trying to get get away

from the death penalty, get away from the first degree. so it's been a journey. but i tell you, it's been a journey that i can honestly. i believed in something and it worked. i believe in god. and he showed me that it works because it shows we're sitting here today. i took mr. sebastian's life's do i deserve a second chance? did i deserve redemption? do i deserve grace? only what i believe in told me? yes. you know, i can believe in this town. you know, i did. years in prison. i can believe in this town. 30 years. and if i tell that rise light my face. and if it does, it, i believe you for 30 years. and you. so i believe even sitting on death row that one day i would

be free and i would be able to tell my my story. you're 16 years old. 17 years old. a. you know, by this time i'm 18. that's right. yeah, i get it. the jury comes back back guilty or not guilty, what do you remember that guilty. it took them. i think maybe, 4 hours, not even. yeah. to come back with guilty. and what a circus, you know, soon as the judge. i mean as soon as the foreman said guilty, the courtroom erupted. you know, my mom. i've never a well like that. i mean that's a sound. yeah that's the shook his head. but you know, i was a young man sitting there giving the. you are guilty. yeah. guilt guilty of first degree murder and then turn around in the same jury give the death

sentence. so you deserve death. you don't come in someone's home with a weapon at night in their sleep. and it makes so much sense today. i'm 64 now, and it just it's just it makes so much sense to me now. today that after 30 years of being confined and living in some of a therapeutic community, some parts, it was a jungle you know, but i persevere and i made it through and. there's some reason there's a purpose for my story to be out here. and there was there's other guys that are out here walking the street that i saw death row time with. they are free now, but they don't want this. you'll never get them in front of a camera talking about on their days. they were on death row. the crime they want to be left alone.

they just want to enjoy their second chance at grace and freedom and say, hey, you know, i did it. but i'm sorry. i don't want to be seen. no, that's not mr. allen that's not what god has planned for me. but i feel i'm to be a story to talk about many years, many decades. where were you incarcerated? what was that like for, 30 years? well, sir, i've i've every facility in the state of nevada i've been to every prison in the state in nevada men's facility, starting at the old state prison in coralville city, where i was housed for the first six years. i two, four years on death row. and i did two years in there, general population. and i was just telling some people on the sideline i said it

was such an honor to be able to go back inside and stand in the cell that i was in when i was waiting execution. yeah. why did you do that? i want to know. i want to they're going to condemn the prison. the prison's already condemned and going to use it for a tourist. some of tourist attraction. so go before they do that. can i just go back on death? can i. can i stand in the chamber. or can i go to the cell and i stand in the cell that i was as a teenager? you know, and they allowed me to do that. and we took pictures and, you know, and now it's going to be part of the probably my documentary. but because no man wants to go back, i think in the first probably it went back and done it. it was eerie. i mean, the the goofball and the feeling just knowing that i was maybe days away, that chamber

right there, you know. what makes my life so valuable when the public has spoke and the same the same public, the same community, same society that spoke turned around and spoke again. and so they let him go. yeah. james allen jr how did that happen. first of all, you were on death row for several years, but then incarcerated in general population as say yes for up to 30 years. yes. how how it that you're sitting here with us at the las vegas convention center caesars. well and what a beautiful place caesar's for. you know thought i would never see places like this again. but. through grace and mercy and, you know, i have nothing but. the highest respect for.

the nevada prison system during my era, during ten year of being incarcerated, we had some director and governors who care, you know, surely they could have given up and say, hey, there were way to keep you got it right. he's guilty. you got the right guy. so a way to keep. but it was something about that administration. those governors, they were ex educators the kids, the exes may rest in peace. governor kenny gwynn gave an opportunity. yo, i'm going to give you a chance. i see something you. i'm not a law enforcement. you know i'm not a judge. i wasn't a day i was an i'm a businessman and see something in you. i see a young man sitting in front of me today, and i'm going to grant you this commutation.

i'll you to see the parole board. but it's up to them. that's out. our live coverage, the miami book fair, continues now now. and good evening. welcome. the 41st edition of the miami book fair. and i'm patrick. i work here at the college. i'll be introducing our introduce here who is mayor dan

gelber. i'll get to that in a moment. i want say a couple of words about the fair. this is our fort 41st year doing this and we cannot do it without the massive help volunteers, the entire miami-dade college family is out here directing human traffic everywhere we go. let's give a round of applies to the volunteers. the book, books and our independent bookstore is selling the the books outside guide for all of the speakers at the book fair. let's give them a round of applause to and following this event. the book is for you to purchase and authors will do a signing afterward in the signing area down and the green table to my right past the elevator. and so with that let me just. this the book profiles in health

courage and we're going to introduce the authors with mayor dan gilbert. dan gelber was recently the three term mayor of miami beach. before that, he was a state senator and representative where he was elected as the democratic in the florida legislature. dan also served as a federal in south florida for nearly a decade where he handled some of south florida's significant cases before moving to d.c. to lead the u.s. senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations. it's to be longer than anything. let's give dan let's give dan a round of applause. everybody. him anyway. thank you. all right. i it's the introduction is longer than remarks. you know, something's gone wrong. welcome to the 470th edition of the miami book fair, it's been around actually for over 40 years. that's pretty incredible, because nothing around here last more 40 years. so let's hear it for mitchell kaplan and all the people that do all the great work here. so today you've got amazing panel and an amazing book about

mental illness, mental health. i do want to recognize someone in the audience, judge steve, one of the great voices of our community where you judge stand, stand up judge steve life and really an amazing voice in this issue. so when you read this and you need to you need to buy it, then read it, don't read it, then buy it. okay? buy it and read it. you're going to see a lot of people's names in their profiles and they're people that might types of people, you know, in your lives. justin, lawyer ashley health care. they're everyday people, managing orchestra, you know, navigating mental and struggles invisibly sometimes of the neglect and the prejudices somebody has towards that. and what this book does is it puts these profiles out for you. and the author of it is somebody who really this as well as anyone honorable patrick kennedy served in the us congress for 16 years, representing rhode, a good deal of his time and energy was spent dealing with these

issues, fighting to end medical and societal discrimination against mental illness. but in many ways it was his own brave openness about his own journey, which allowed people to really and allowed his successes in the us congress to happen this book, by the way, has many who are brave and are open about it, and you'll find to be pretty incredible. he chronicled own journal originally in the book a common struggle, which is the new york times bestseller, but it was his personal journey that really paved the way for people to understand both what it is and how to solve it and how to it. he is here to talk about profiles in mental courage with his writing partner, stephen freed, who himself is an acclaimed and speaker journalist. he has six books to his name. he's won numerous awards and you'll see he has some really incredible things to about this topic. they are joined by gabrielle

anwar. now, you may think she's been in a ton of things. i remember her from a scent of a woman when she did the tango. you don't dance the tango you tango the tango with al pacino and she's been in so many other things. but you'll notice her name is also a name in this book. she is one of the people profiled, which is pretty incredible and brave of her to help by talking about her own journey and her own struggles. by the way, she's on the board of pickler, usa. she frequently speaks on issues of childhood care and mental health, and she has hosted for 12 consecutive years the southern florida make-a-wish ball, which has raised more than $30 million for children with life threatening illnesses. a pretty incredible thing. and with her husband, friend and local icon sharif melnick, a full blooded miami kid who grew up here. he's chairman emeritus of make-a-wish and he belongs to one of the really florida's most philanthropic families. a shameless plug for sharif as

he's the recent co-founder and ceo, sun rum. he didn't ask me to do this. i just thought it would help him out. it recently the brand as america's newest puerto rican rum sensation with a dollar from every sale going to puerto rican american micro-business owners. so when you buy the book, go buy some of his rum. you'll help everybody out simultaneously. it'll be great. your moderator tonight knows a little bit about mental illness, too. susan holtzman is your moderator. she's president and ceo of the national on mental illness in miami-dade, which is one of the really biggest organizations nationally which advocates for improvements to those addressing and dealing with mental health challenges. so you have a really informed and thoughtful group here today between congressman kennedy, between mr. between gabrielle anwar sharif malik, you're going to learn a lot and you're going to hear these stories. but the best thing you can do is buy the book at the end of this presentation. have a wonderful afternoon. you know, and.

my life, no one else. there we go. okay. hi, everyone. i am susan holtzman. very happy to be here. i as was mentioned, the president and ceo of the local affiliate of the national alliance on illness. and we work to provide education support and for people living with mental conditions and their families. so i am absolutely thrilled and honored to be here with this distinguished group of people who are who are practicing what we preach i have to say. and so i know we want to get

right to it. so i'll get started. and i want start by thanking you, patrick, for all the work you and your family have done really over the decades to support people, cognitive disabilities and mental health issues and and if anyone has i know is book was mentioned in the introduction it's a great book i learned so much about policy in the policy development in this field. it's it's a great read i recommend it but i to ask you this book you focus on people stories and it's very much about storytelling in a very broad way. and you also share your own story. so i wanted to ask you, how did you that decision to can you share with us a little bit of your story and why you chose to do things that way? well, first of all, i was very fortunate to know steve and his brilliant so that anyone knows this is so well written. it's this guy right here, i did my own story, a biography called

the common struggle with steve. and i shared that book with all the profiles before they participated in it, because they wanted i wanted them to see the kind of writing that would portray their story, because these are not easy to talk about. and if you could actually get a different narrative around them, i think more people would be more comfortable talking about them. so i shared my story and then they felt more comfortable. it also allowed me to be able to ask them questions, as someone who also has lived experience and the impact of storytelling on, on, on how mental illness is perceived in the community well, it's you know, president when he came do the moon shot on cancer at the jfk library. i told him, mr. president addiction is the new cancer and trying to get them to focus on

this new thing because of course done a lot. my dad is a major part of the whole investment in cancer. we never ask much money. we're spending on cancer. we just it trillions and triple into dollars over the decades. but this has gotten a fraction of funding for then even aids, of course, like a infinitesimal amount of money compared to cancer, heart disease and yet brain illnesses are are the thing that's actually reducing our life expectancy as a nation. we had the most incredible biomedical breakthroughs that are, you know, lengthening our years, but in a different sense because a suicide and overdose the life expectancy is actually going for the first time. but the point i really want to make is the quality life is what these illnesses affect, because we're all focused on mortality. but there's this thing called

morbidity. my mom is in her eighties and so she's lived a long life in years, but she's been absolutely disabled by alcoholism and depression. so i, i think all of us really discount the loss, you know, people could live but be, you know, not living because of these illnesses totally people out of their lives. and that's a tragedy. i don't think if we factor into the calcul if we did, i think we'd be really investing a great deal more in these illnesses, but treating them as well as finding better therapeutics. i agree completely. and i think our audience agree this is it's not something we normally talk about mental illness, but if it if if you think about it just for a minute, probably everyone in this room knows someone who

struggled with a mental health condition and some some more successfully than others. and so for me, when i read the book, i, i was really fascinated at how complex these stories are. and and this is something i deal with every day personally because i am a but also in the work that we do at nami and it is it became even more a little more overwhelming and complex as far as i was concerned after reading the book. but i wanted to ask you and shareef, you were generous enough. share your story, which is which is really the story of both of you and your relationship and how this has worked your life. could you share with us a little bit about that, how that's impacted your lives together and how made that choice to go ahead and share that story. okay. i'll go first. i think i've always been candid about the state of my mental health to anyone would listen.

so it's no big secret. certainly not in my little universe. but it wasn't until met shareef that he said something needs to be done about you literally said that and and fortunately, i felt urge to listen. so we decided to be a part of this book because thought it would be helpful and also wanted to work with stephen. and patrick's adorable so. that's why i'm here. how you. yes, thank you. well, it's a little more complicated than that. okay. i when i met gabrielle instantly in love the day we met and love at first sight does actually is sustainable sometimes.

and in this case it is. but i didn't realize that, you know, i grew up in a in an environment where you wouldn't if somebody had a mental illness, you wouldn't discuss it? i knew nothing about mental illness, nor did i know that she was suffering from the mental illness. and when it became evident to me and, she's really i tell you. yeah. actually she did. you did at some you said, hey, by the way, i'm bipolar. and i'm like, oh, great you know, i didn't even know what that meant. you're right. you're right. i didn't know. important. that comment was? no, i had no idea what that meant i. oh, you must be creative. i heard a lot of actresses are bipolar, right? until some you know, we went through some episodes of what that really looks like and and her willingness to talk about her mental illness has made me much more comfortable in sharing

experiences. but you if you fall in love with somebody or having a relationship with somebody or you make a commitment it just because you find out there's something going on with them, that's a reason to like lean in actually and. so i leaned in and i was fortunate enough to do some research and find charlie nemeroff at, the university of miami, the head of the psychiatry department and who's helped us greatly. and i think saved us from a lot of potential turmoil. beautiful thanks so much. so, stephen, in the book, you're the storyteller, and i was interested to hear about the the challenges you had because. these stories are beautifully told. clearly, you know, you're you're the one that shaped the way that they were told so that we get a full picture of the full

complexity. so i wanted to hear a little bit from you on how the choices you made and the challenges that you had with that. sure. i mean, i've been fortunate in my journalistic to get opportunities a number times to write long form suicide, to write long for about illness. i mean, the first time i wrote about patrick, it was an article that he didn't control. we later did a book together, but he and amy were brave to talk to me as openly as they did. kay jamison, who i think you probably have had this book fair a lot of times, first came out to me in article that i did in the washington post about her before she published unquiet mind. so i've given a lot of thought to how you tell stories in a way that can be helpful. but i never had the opportunity to tell a lot of stories. you know, usually you get one person, one diagnosis and part of the challenge that we feel we know a lot about mental illness because we hear people give very short descriptions of their diagnosis and a little bit about it. that's advocacy.

i'm not against advocacy, but they're other than advocacy. and in order for people really understand what it's like to have the illnesses, you have to do really long interviews. and in our case, we said to the people from the beginning, one, we're only going to write about you if you can, we can use your which veryyour first name and unusual, very unusual. but people did. we also that in our best scenario that we wanted to talk to their physicians. we wanted to see their medical records if they would let us have them. we never saw your medical, but your psychiatrist went through them with me over hours. and the other thing was that extensive. they are and the other thing was we wanted to talk about relationships and not just the individual person. and the goal was to do enough interviews to come back to the individual person who's told us a story and then ask their spouse or ask other family members that come back to do it. these guys had great stories that they had told in dramatic fashion. i mean when shreve says he leaned in, when he's not telling

you and this is one of the first stories in the book about them is that one of the first times he realized that gabrielle's illness was more extreme, that he thought it was they were out at a bar drinking and they both had a little bit too much to drink. and shareef said, maybe you shouldn't have another drink. and gabrielle him in the mouth. and then he jokingly said, why don't you do that again? and so she did. so this is the kind of story. but i will tell you as a journalist, the kind of story that you don't want to over dramatize, because, one, it's not that unusual. and one of the things that we wanted to make sure that people is that the things that happened with with mental illness, with people, with substance use disorders, they aren't unusual and people in their lives learn to deal with them, learn to get through them. and i think that more than almost any other in the book, sharif and gabrielle were really willing to talk about what it's like to be in a couple. and one of the things that patrick and i found incredibly i remember when they were talking about it was, they were just sharif us. he was trying to decide whether he could marry gabrielle all

before she had her illness under control. and he asked himself whether that would be something he would be waiting for and they would never get married. and these issues of, chronic illness and love, they're not just about mental illness and addiction. they are about all chronic illnesses and love. they're issues that patrick and i both care about in our own marriages. and this was something that we thought god it would be really great to be able to write about that, too so in many of these stories, there's as much about the love relationships as there are about the symptomatology, because life, that's the way the illness is really. ah so the goal was to have many different diagnoses. people from, every different ethnic group, every every age, every socioeconomic. so you would get really different. and then there's two stories of people who lost their lives, one of whom was patrick's cousin and his cousin and his cousin's father and brother spoke about their brother's death for the first time and honestly spoke about it to each other for the

first time after seven years as part of this book. they were incredibly brave. the biggest thing i will say from the very beginning about i both said, if we can get people to see the struggle with mental illness and addiction to be courageous and sad, that would be the best that we could do. because anybody who knows this knows that it is courageous. even the people who lose the are courageous. and so that's we picked the jfk title and we're really happy that we were able to use it. and i love it that people can't just use that phrase now profiles of mental health courage because that is really it's all about. thank you so much. i love and i love that we can i can think of my own family members as courageous and the that we work with on a daily basis as courageous. i gabrielle, you disclosed some things in the book that you you had never disclosed before. and and and then today you

mentioned that you you did this because you wanted to help. so i wanted to know two things. what prompted to make these new disclosures? again, several people in the book said i've never disclosed this certain part of my illness before. and you said you wanted to help. so do you feel that you have helped. and i question has this disclosing and being part of this book helped you, helped your relationship? yeah, it has certainly helped us. i think well, stephen and patrick were very beguiling and i may have shed too much much, but i like i said, i'm willing to talk about this to anyone who will listen. and i always been i, i think that the stigma in order to be lifted to be this has be a common conversation and nothing to be ashamed of. and i don't have any shame surrounding my own mental

illness at all, which wasn't the case. but i think sharing it's the most intimate thing anyone really share is their own mental state of being. so our intimacy is partly made up of that and and he's just been such a support system to me. you have, which incredibly grateful for. and we continue to learn and grow. and i i've had own struggles with addiction over years and i think addiction is just a symptom of mental illness. i really firmly believe that usually undiagnosed mental illness. so so having somebody in your life who supports you to do, what's right and what's best for your health is huge. and i wish for everybody.

thank you so much. and terry, for you. this these big disclosures also and we know you are you are well-known, the community here in miami and miami beach. and so so your courage in disclosing this, how are you feeling about it now that the book is out? i actually it's been an evolution for me. like i said, i didn't grow up sharing anything. i was very introspective and i kept everything very close to the vest. and i feel so much, you know, i'm a protector by nature. so when i first met gabrielle, i wanted to protect her, protect her reputation. maybe when that's not let people know, oh, my. your voice is getting loud. and i started to understand that that's the stigma that mental illness is facing. and it's never going to get resolved if we sweep under the rug and then becoming more

empathetic to seeing someone on a corner talking to themselves, you know that that could be any of us. and my wife didn't ask for this illness. she just has it right. and she went through, hell, medication is really you know, saved her. i believe. but that was those same opportunities that has maybe that that person on the corner or the subway, on the plane or in the airport that is having it episode doesn't have that opportunity, at least not so. it's it's really when i saw this incredible we were up in in dc with patrick and stephen and when i saw all the different profiles from the book on it's just hit me so hard that this is the world this is a austin slice of the rest of the world. they're all real stories. they're all real relationships

and they're all real people. and we can't just say, oh, that person's crazy, you know, or that block person up like this. you it could be all of us that should be locked up, too. we don't know when it's going to hit us or how it's going to hit us. so such an important journey that i've been on that gabrielle has been on. and obviously stephen and patrick. so it's been an honor to be part of and try to help break stigma and get people to help that they. so true and. and i, i the stories that you shared are are so common. i had an issue with a family member and they called and said this person is doing this thing thing is really weird and it's not normal and and this person needs to be hospitalized immediately and that was the direction i went until talked to a few other people who said, oh, yeah i did that too. you know, it wasn't turned out. it wasn't that weird? i was just getting bad information and bad advice. so i think, you know, talking

about it, sharing about it and having the ability talk to other people who are going through this so that you if you build a network of people who have mental health conditions, family members or loved ones of, people who have mental health conditions, that's often you get your best information. but i wanted to come back to you, patrick. talk about the work done. stephen, do you look like and i would only say one of the things that that i i'm happy to hear when people read the book is that they i think they realized that they think that these things only to them. so even people who actually are doing a decent job in, their families with their illnesses still think it's only them. there's very little competency our society about how many people have these illnesses, how common they are and it seems like every person who gets diagnosed has to learn from scratch. i don't think that's true any other illness in our society anymore. but it's so true of addiction

it's so true of mental illness. when people have the little light bulb go off over their heads that addiction and, mental illness are the they are connected, that's like a secondary thing. they've been in treatment for years. one of the characters in our in our book, tony, was treated for opiate addiction and crack addiction for years was homeless. it wasn't until she in and out of prison ten, 20 times had had so many children when she was drugs that she actually doesn't know how she had. and she's trying to track them down now and someone said to her, you know, when aren't on drugs, you are still having hallucinations. you were still having delusions. you have an underlying mental illness. and she actually said to us, no one ever tells black people they have mental illness and she said, no black, people believe they have mental illness. and so there's all these on top of it, all the cultural different things that people have so all i would say is, you know, even that we've written

before policy and very in-depth policy things. the basic idea that most people don't this yet and that it's part of our job to help them get it and to help them understand that it's not unusual, but it's that it's that it's not simple. it's not. and but it is treatable again if people see the illness as the thing they're fighting and not each other and not the medical system and try to do the best they can. and these are people who have over time succeeded. but the other thing that we tried to show was they're curves, which can be really long and some people don't survive their learning curves. so we would like them to short help to help shorten their learning curves so they can focus on the things are at hand. tony was one of my favorites from the book. she and when you read her story, you believe that this person eventually gets to a place where

she is is pretty well is managing her illness because the beginning part, it is really so dark and so i just loved her that that and i think as you talked about this issue and we talked about this briefly before the this understanding and accept in a diagnosis, it is is very difficult for a person living with a mental health condition for a family member. the idea you may have to be on medication for the rest of life, the idea that you may have to help manage this person's life for the rest of their life, it takes a very long time to accept that. and that's one of the things that, you know, we watch people go on that journey, may get a phone, call it nami asking about someone and we may not see that person again for two years until they okay, now we get it. now we understand. and now we've been to multiple doctors. and so i think, you know, that's

one of the things that i really grapple with is giving them the grace, give them the time to understand, because it doesn't you can't see it you don't the. decline is different. so it takes a long time to accept. and i and then we talk about recovery and there's so much in the book about the different types of recovery there's addiction recovery, there's 12 step programs, hardcore sometimes referred to hardcore aa and then and then the the medical clinical recovery and what happens with drug regimens and trying drugs and and then parity issues. so i wanted to ask a little bit your views on that. any of you and the work that you're doing right now to ensure that parity because we're still seeing it we still see that people are treated quickly and

pushed out, that they're insurance may not cover the medication that they really need. so they're put on a medication that may not work as well for them or may have really horrific side effects. so i'd love to hear a little bit about the work you're doing there. sure. well, i love the what stephen said about how people will not feel as alone when they read these because they can read their own story, them. and the big problem, these illnesses that they're isolating and the i love so much about sharif's story. part of it is that, you know, of us who had the illness feel like we're going to be isolated. and that's what such an take away from story. and i would say, you know, to me we've you just outlined a lot of things like mental illness. there's mental health there's you know, addiction. there's types of addiction in my

view, for having been in congress like, you know, you have organized advocacy groups. and what i love nami is, is that identify because everyone because they've been through it themselves. and that's such a big support to families. but pauletta. oakley, we are not talking because all that people need with their schizophrenia addiction or depression or anxiety, it's the same thing they. need a bio psychosocial support system. they need we need to address this comprehensively. so and political play. my wife ran for congress a few years ago and i could get 100 bricklayer guys to an event the day after tomorrow i got 5000 teachers to hold from my wife on on election day, but i couldn't get ten people who are because you've got the opioid overdose folks you've got the alcohol

disorder, you got the stimulant use disorder, you got the schizophrenia. then you, the bipolar, have their own advocate. i a depression has their anxiety and it's just and then, of course, all the trade groups from psychiatry, their thing psychology has their thing. social workers, counselors and when then we have the inpatient outpatient. we're just so fragmented and my goal is to to get a list served. so i wanted to reach any buddy union. they're a teamster truck driver, a sheet metal worker or a laborer. i just call one not one number. afl-cio. give me all the lists. but we don't have lists of everybody both working in the field. we don't have the lists of families that who are public about it and even even we just got the list of people who are public still be the biggest special interest group. the country.

and if we got that and when then we had like the unions to like does like chamber if we had our list of like here are our priorities and that's regulatory change statute it would get done it get done because if you want those votes in the next election is what you need to do and so that's and so i did this thing called the alignment for progress because if you don't have the plan which is you know you have judge life and you got the criminal justice budget because the biggest mental health institutions in this country are jails and you got to get education because our kids are not going to learn if they're anxious and traumatized and they don't know what their prefrontal cortex. so they're making a lot and they don't have any problems and coping mechanism developed. so you got kids then employers don't know what to do because their workers you may not be had the productivity because they

don't know how to manage stress and then you've got people in our streets and you could go on and on. this is like such an existential for this whole country. our military can't recruit enough people because can't pass drug tests. i mean this thing is like and every of our chronic illnesses are four times more expensive because we don't address the underlying depression anxiety addiction that goes hand in hand with these illnesses. i mean, this is the biggest impact of any public health issue we have in this country. and yet we're getting a free fraction of the dollars that we get for every other illness. so just as a matter of equity, that's you know, my fight has just been around parity just to make sure insurance companies don't against. those with these illnesses. and it's impossible we're the first folks to get denied because we're not organized. you know they try to deny a cancer that has, you know, margin or impact on someone's

you know they approve it. i don't care much it costs you have a mental health drug. you have to fail first 15 million times before you got to try to get treatment for our addiction. impossible. we don't even pay for the things that we know work. we don't pay for supportive housing. as you know, in your own family, the clubhouse models ought to be reimburse their psychosocial supports, stabilize people, give them a place of community and in the those should be paid for sober so much more effective in terms bringing people long term success in recovery and that would bring lifetime longer success if you could get it, you're not going to get it in just a week or a month. you're going to have to have. so all i'm saying is there we need to map this out and we don't need to know every little thing, every little issue. we just need to know we have a plan. and the fact is, we a plan. i consult it and got the best advice could ask for over the

years. i put it all in a qr code in the back of this book. so so you can look i look it and we have to and there's no philanthropy in this space speak of. so my goal is to try to raise money to create the political movement. so that we can, on a bipartisan we can get this. but i. and i say, as i've heard patrick and i know his before him say a million times, all politics is personal. and the only way that any of those things get done is if we are more personally open about illnesses, because no one's going to do all this. if we are keeping about what's going on, we also will not get the quality of care that we need. and all this that patrick is describing what you see in the book. this book is not and analyzing all this. this is straight up storytelling. the biggest thing that i can say to somebody is the story of

somebody with mental or addiction is an important dramatic narrative story that you should read. you know, williams shouldn't get to tell be the only one to tell psychological. we need stories that are evidence based, mental health that are still as because when you read the story of what shareef and gabrielle went through it is dramatic and fascinating and it should. but when you read the stories you immediately see where all the disconnects are in care. the goal of this book not to then send you to a footnote to go read about the disconnect and care. you can read the first book if you want to read about this disconnection. it's really just say, can you care. can we teach what it is like to have these illnesses? can we get you to care on a much more in-depth level about? the person sitting next to you whose kid has this, who has it themself, whose mother had it and never talked it so that they can share it once people are more open about this, i'm saying the diseases go away. they don't.

but what they do is allow the community to be a community about these illnesses, faith communities ignore these illnesses. sometimes a lot of communities that include they have inclusion, almost everything but mental illness and addiction because mental illness and addiction are challenging to include. and i think our goal in telling these stories is to show that they don't have to be that challenging. these people are exactly the same as you. if the people around you told the truth about what they were really going. exactly. so we're going to go ahead and take some questions from the audience i do i want to mention that nami miami, we are asking people to share their stories so you can go ahead to nami miami, morgan and share your own story about, your journey. i shared mine on and we have many others. so we invite you do that, help other people and help yourself share your story. go ahead. our first question. yes, hi, francie. a little background, 448 pounds

former alcoholic, nine millimeter in my hand, bipolar. i a divorce psychiatrist, heart attack and diet therapist, went to prison, went to rehab came out and started looking for a different way of of i realized that in aa meetings and and other support groups that were trying to survive the day by day survival and i don't believe that born to survive we're all born to thrive. and i firmly believe wholeheartedly that instead of curing the disease, the later on in life how about in schools? i firmly that the most underrated founding father was benjamin rush. and if he were alive here today, our school system would be completely different. we would have emotional intelligence in our schools and instead of mental illness, how about looking at mental fitness? because words matter. what are your thoughts as far as

putting this stuff which because it's not just about addiction, it's about incarceration. it's about 80% of our diseases start up in our minds. i hear you. let me go first. it's actually i just wrote a biography of benjamin rush. here's what i would say to you these two things aren't opposites. each other. okay, there is emotional wellness. and there is treatment of people with mental illness. and the idea that if you have emotional wellness that people not develop mental illness is a dream. it mean that we can't treat mental illness early, mean that we can't make the symptoms more under control and have people have easier lives. the idea that every generation of americans that their kids are being made more mentally ill by the pressures of their generation. you know who said that first? benjamin rush every generation thinks this because they don't want to realize that that a certain percentage of people under whatever pressures the society have developed mental illnesses and addictions and we

have to take them seriously and have our first priority be to treat and the debate that you're discussing is an important, but it often doesn't help people get. and i have to say that the first thing that patrick and i have been about in both of the books we're doing is to make sure that the first thing we're focused on is making sure that people who diagnoses get care, because that's the thing we know how to take care of first. so there many interesting theories about all this. and of course, this is start the earliest age, but you're still going to have to separate people who are getting wellness from people who have symptoms of mental illness that that wellness is not going to just make go away. we have to be able to keep both of those ideas in our heads. i just want to congratulate you all. thank you. i appreciate i thank you for the question. i want to thank the for summarizing the problem that i

and as my come fellow colleague, physicians have had to deal with mental health knows i cannot trust in our county in naples will accept insurance because doesn't pay everybody is cash now attention deficit disorder was brought out of the of the closet the children are getting and adults are getting treated through championship of representative sylvia oconto county of massachusetts. he stood for these kids and adults and helped get the treatments that we have. how do you see putting together a group of champions in congress to especially the present one? but how do you see getting a group of champions to to finally bring this to a much better conclusion for of us who treat

the patients and those who live with them. well when i went to congress, i went on the armed committee because i represented rhode island. we have all the navy there. i didn't think i could do anything for the labor guys who helped me get elected or my environmental friends who went out and organized for me or the portuguese that came out for me. but when i got there, the labor union guys came in and said, got a whole bunch of issues in the dod that. we need to get fixed. i'm like, oh, what are they here? they and then the environmentalists came and i said, listen guys, it's army, navy, air force, and that's what i'm about. and they said, no, wait a second. the department defense has a bigger environmental budget than any of even the epa. and i'm like, i had no idea. but my point in this is we're not organized so that every

single committee in congress has a list of to and. by the way, like i said, we those two dues all match whatever your diagnosis at the end of the day. and what we need is the power unity rather than end up in our little silos by diagnosis. so i think of congress are so to do the right thing. but they need to know what that is. honestly and there's that. we don't have that easily accessible to them. and i would note the advocacy to be broader because what we do see when we do, say, successes they tend to be narrow because of lobbying. so the adhd is a great. but, you know, if the people who are trying to get that changed were working with people from other diagnoses, some of which are treated by amd, some of which are treated by psychologists, some by psychiatric social workers, you know, but our advocacy is really

splintered by whatever our family member has. and part of the goal of a book like this is to make people understand across the board that there you know, i guess this is the theme of a right now these diseases more in common than they have separate and it's time for our advocacy to to manifest really thanks. i think we're ready for the next question although i do that's really a a call to action for us. we're active advocating in the state and on a national level, but the state advocacy is also some of it can be somewhat splintered but supportive. housing is one of the major things that really advocating for so but the german mentioned insurance. i mean there's more people psychiatrists pay take cash out of psychiatry assets or more. i mean cosmo surgeons and others and take insurance more often than psychiatry is the only

field in medicine where the primary clinicians. are not taking insurance. and part of that is because the insurance industry doesn't pay them because evaluate the long the wrong relative value unit which is the. yeah, so surgery gets paid them out, right? so parity is about showing the disparities in access to care length of time to care level of care. we've got all that mapped out but we have no one going to the attorney and saying listen this payer because we're keeping stories denials in rhode island we had the same types of denials they had in northern california by the same and i went to the head of afl-cio who covered the state workers and i pointed that out and they didn't get the new contra act from the most lucrative contract in the or state employees. they lost that contract because.

i was able to show them that what they bought. they weren't getting in terms of coverage. and if you brought that to employers and say you're paying for this, but not getting the care you're paying for, i think there'd be a different feeling. but got to be that transparent, saying that has to have advocacy. i mean, imagine if you went to any employer here in miami and handed out a leaflet saying who their third party administrator was and what their record was paying and access and care i guarantee you all those employers would go in and ask their h.r. hey, what's the deal with our payer? they're doing x, y, z wrong. and then you know, what happened? the ceo would call to their third party in this has say what's going on here? i'm telling you, that's how get done in this world. it's pressure and we're not bringing the pressure is the point thanks so much thank yeah let's to your next question you

know we're at the end of time and so we have to go are you all available for book signing at the end so the group is going to go over the book signing desk and you can bring your question there. i'm sorry to disappoint, but we have to close this. i thank you all very much. if you missed any of today's coverage of the 2024 miami book fair, it re-airs and entirety starting tonight at 10 p.m. eastern and will be live at miami tomorrow starting at 11 a.m. eastern.

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and now joining us on book tv is george landreth. the third is book is called let freedom ring again. ken self-evident truth save from future decline. let's start with your subtitle, mr. landreth. what do you mean by self-evident truths? well, i'm kind of thinking of the idea that, you know, all men are created equal, endowed by their creates an animal rights. among these are life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and getting back to these ideas that, every american, every human being actually has inalienable rights. and we to respect those rights and our government ought to be organized in a way that it's focused on protecting rights and and not necessarily infringing them. and i think as government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, it sometimes transgresses that principle so that it starts that order it's about and treat us like we're subjects rather than citizens. and so i would argue that we

went from 13 what i would call fairly colonies, you know, military and economic like compared to the rest of the world to being the world's sole superpower, militarily, economically, we were the shining city on the hill. and i that we still are. but i feel like that is a little bit at risk right now because we have kind of i feel like we've gotten a little off the path lost our way a wee bit. so my book is hoping wake america from its civic slumber and get us back on track where focus on the things that matter, which is letting people be free and. then they will generally, some people misuse their freedom and if they do, they can be punished for violations of the law. but most people will use that freedom to accomplish good things, you know, to support family, to raise their family, to be an entrepreneur and invent new things. you know, so forth. so i think we need to unleash that again, as opposed

unleashing government. because the founding fathers believed in the people and they had a lot of concerns, big government because they'd had some bad experiences, big government with the king and parliament and so forth. and you write in your book, we need a lot less than we currently have. how would you like to see it shrink? well, i'd like it to it to focus on maybe what it needs to do the most. and again, back to these ideas of inalienable rights and not kind of dictating how we live our life, not dictating what we're allowed to think about, talk about. i'm a big proponent, example of free speech. and that people who totally disagree with me and might even call me names and say i'm an idiot. i think they have the right to say that. and my if someone said, well, what would you do about? the answer is try to give a better response, a more based response, and more logical response so that the listeners will decide actually think he's right. but i don't want to silence

people who disagree with me because i feel like the the rigor of having an open debate is really worthwhile it helps educate the public and it empowers the public to to be the ultimate fact checkers of everything that happens. you are the founder of frontiers of freedom and you also host the conservative commando radio show. what are those? frontiers of freedom. actually, i'm the and ceo but the founder was malcolm wallace, who was a friend of reagan, former senator, former senator and good friend of mine. and a mentor of mine. but that is a it's a public policy think tank. and interestingly enough, the perspective of the organization is a lot. this book, its goal is to the government that expands freedom and protects americans rights but doesn't try to compel them into things. i mean, but only thing i really want to compel people to is to not harm others. meaning if someone up at your

house to to murder or to burn your house down, i'd like the police to show up and stop them. but you know. but if somebody to come to my house to deliver letter telling me they thought i was a complete bozo and they hate me and they don't mean any harm, they just mean to insult me, that's fine. that's that's you know what i mean? i think we to understand that we can allow disagreements, what we know and. so anyhow, that's our organizational perspective. and then conservative commanders is a radio and a tv show. it comes in two format and it's it's broadcast over fcc regulated airwaves. we always remind our guests no foul language allowed, please. but i don't want a phone call from the fcc. but anyhow, we are again, that same the goal is is to promote freedom and opportunity for all. do you believe that there is a

deep state in the federal government? i think is a little bit of what you might call and that is as government has grown very, very large, it gets a little unwieldy in the sense that it historically there's been very significant checks, balances on the various branches of government, our constitution. there are not a lot of checks and balances on the bureaucracy and when it's doubled and tripled and quadrupled i think that becomes a little bit of a problem. i teach constitutional law and school and our founders very, very focused on dividing, slicing and dicing power. so they did it with separate branches of government. they also did it between federal, local and state governments. they concept of federalism. and then they created all kinds of limits. in fact, i would even argue that first ten, the bill of rights is not a statement of rights. if you read it, it doesn't say fly in, fly away language. you have the right to speak, but it says us congress shall make no law. in other words, it's a limitation on the ability of congress is saying we don't care

what the populace wants to do. they don't like your opinion. they can't silence you. and same thing with religion. if the populace doesn't like the church you choose to go to, or the fact that you don't go to church. they have no say in the matter. so in that sense it was a limitation on the majority because our founders were worried about a majority being you know they wanted to avoid government from the exercise of of three sheep sheep voting to eat the two be three wolves out loving two sheep as to what's for dinner. and they wanted to make sure that we didn't have democracy become that kind of an exercise. they wanted the public and the majority to the movers of policy america. but they wanted to limit what that policy be so that if i'm unpopular, still have a right to live. they can't just vote to say no trial for him, just throw him in jail. we don't like him. george landreth has undergrad from brigham young law degree

from uva. do you think the federal government has been weaponized? well, i don't know that, you know, weaponized. i think things and things like nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers and things like that. i mean, obviously, we have a military and that's important, our national security. but do think that we have some as government has gotten bigger, it's a little more a little too proactive in the sense that, you know, i think an example would be i happen to be pro-life, but i wouldn't want a government showing up and trying to arrest people who pro-choice. i think they have a right to have that opinion. and i feel like we're getting to a point where maybe government's getting a little too focused on trying predetermine what we're allowed and what the acceptable opinions are. you see that in some cases. and, you know, like up in canada there now, i think they were working on making it illegal to miss gender someone. so i think myself, my mother

used to miss name us what i mean, you know, because i was the oldest of five and sometimes my is done the same thing with our kids. you know, she'll you know, instead of calling him thomas or carl or or jefferson, she might call them by one of the other names, you know, and then catch herself and say something. is that a crime? you know, and and so on some level, i think we have to. make sure that government is not that much in our face. you know, i'm very much into the idea that we want powerful government to protect us from terrorists, to protect us from foreign adversary, is we want a powerful government to make sure that we have law and order in the streets you know, so that there's a riot going on. we can stop that riot because i don't want to have house burned down by a mob of a thousand people, you know. so but if it came with to the irs. yeah. i think that as an organization that was targeted by the irs during the obama that does

bother me because feel like the rule law suggests that that's not an appropriate use of government power and that is what you should do is say i don't like their views. let's go ahead and use the power of government, punish them for their views. i don't that i think that's inappropriate and. i don't like that just because it was me. the reality is if i were in an administration and they came to me and said hey, want you to go after these groups that are our adversaries, i'd be like, i can't do that for you i'm sorry, that's not legal. it's not right. it's not the rule of law and. we go after people who violate the law, not people who are our adversaries. in your book, let freedom ring again. mm hmm. you quote marcus tullius cicero, quote, a nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious, but it cannot survive prisons from within and enemy at the gates is formidable, for he is and he carries his banners against the city.

but the traitor moves among those within the gates freely his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys heard in the very halls of government itself. to what are you referring? i was referring to the idea we have some americans now who really will act as if the constitution is un-american. and i'm thinking to myself, they didn't used to be like that. it didn't it wasn't a political issue. every there was complete unanimity. i don't think we have to agree on everything. but i for example, i think we would be really hopeful if all americans agreed that we're endowed by creator with an animal rights. we're not given rights by government. and because if government gave you rights, it has the right to take them you. but if government didn't give them you, if they higher authority gave them to you, they can't. and jefferson is the one who said that if if those were given to us by our creator we can't take them from you because they're his gift. and i think that's a much place to be as a nation and as a

people, even you don't believe, i would argue, if you're an atheist and that's fine, you can be an atheist. that's of religious liberty is to not believe. but even then i think he would find comfort in the idea that the populace believes that you have these rights, that are essentially inalienable. you can't sell them you can't have them taken from you. they yours. you're stuck with them. and that's that's i think, a great place to be. you also quote c.s. lewis, by the way, what is c.s. lewis's appeal to conserve and libertarians. well, i think a lot of it is, at least if there's a faith component to him. and he is also smart. so he explains certain things. i think very deeply. he was a smart man. and so i think there's a certain level appreciation for the way he expressed things, because he made his concepts vivid and

bright in the minds of his hearers or his readers. here's c.s. lewis quote of all tyrannies tyranny sincerely exercise for the good of its victims, may the most oppressive. it would better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. the robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, its cupidity may some point be satiated, but those who torment us for own goodwill torment without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. yeah, i think there's some of that that goes on. there are people out there who feel that violating people's constitutional rights is is a good thing and that they're doing what's right. and so they don't feel guilty about it. whereas if they were doing something they thought was wrong, they might have a certain if will limit on what they were going to do. an example might be them if really angry, they might strike

someone that they're angry with, but they wouldn't kill because they realized that's going too far. i can do that. but if you're if you approve of your actions, then there's no limit on what you do. you just go as far you want to, because after all, you've given yourself permission. and so i think it's important we get back to this idea that our are god given and that we cannot take the rights away from others without incurring his wrath. and we ought not approve of any action that we engage in that does. that's to borrow on what jefferson said. george landreth, the third is the author of this book, let freedom ring again itself evident truths save america future decline. and he's been our guest on health tv and life on book tv continues now. television for serious readers readers. today, we're excited to host this talks with authors program on burlington new book nowhere to the hidden story ofri